We're Calling It: The NFL Rulebook No Longer Matters

By any objective measure, this has been a mystifying calendar year for the NFL, from the, shall we say, unpleasantness regarding the air pressure of Tom Brady's footballs, to the rash of domestic violence incidents, the revelations of the Paid Patriotism apparatus, commissioner Roger Goodell's inability to successfully ambulate two steps forward without trampling over his own dick, and the recurring semiotic crises regarding what actually constitutes a catch. But throughout the first 11 weeks of the season, like every season that has come before, there is one thing that has served as a grounding sense of familiarity for fans: the dogged insistence that it is your team in particular that's getting screwed over by the refs.

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After last night's game between the Patriots and the Bills on Monday Night Football, we may not even be able to rely on that constant anymore. It was, by almost universal agreement, one of the more atrociously officiated games in recent memory. So much so that fans of either team were forced to begrudgingly admit that the other side got jobbed almost as much as they did. You know there's something weird going on when even the despised New England Patriots are getting sympathy from fans in other cities. Cats and dogs living together. Mass hysteria.

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ESPN commentator Mike Tirico, who called the game, summed up the proceedings succinctly: "What a screwed-up night of plays and officiating this was. Wow."

The first half of the game transpired mostly without incident, especially if by incident you mean scoring, Rex Ryan seemingly having managed to worm his way inside of Tom Brady's head, both with his blitz schemes and audible choices. But by the third quarter, in what felt like the longest televised spectacle I've ever had the misfortune of watching in its entirety due to the constant flag-throwing and replays, including a downright perplexing and lengthy pause to review a Brandon LaFell catch that was clearly unnecessary, things started to get weird.

With around ten minutes to go in the third quarter, with the Patriots boasting a tenuous-feeling 10-3 lead, Tom Brady, flushed out of his pocket on the Patriots 31, rolled to the right almost all the way toward the sideline, where he found receiver Danny Amendola open 15 yards downfield. And yet, for some reason unknown to gods or man, the ref on the sideline blew his whistle while the ball was still in the air, bringing what looked like would've been a substantial gain, if not a touchdown, to a halt.

According to the rules, "when an official sounds his whistle while the ball is still in play, the ball becomes dead immediately…" But, this being the NFL, whose rule book is approaching Borgesian-Library-of-Babel-size at this point, there are a number of mitigating factors that provide for just the type of cock-up that this turned into. Most relevant is that, if the ball is in the air, as it was here, the whistle having sounded just before the catch, it's to be returned to the previous spot, where the down is replayed. That's not what happened though. Instead, the refs awarded the Patriots the ball at the spot of the catch. To make matters weirder, they tacked on a 15 yard penalty for obstruction from the Bills sideline, Ryan having wandered nearly into the field of play, obscuring the ref's line of vision.

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"I think as Tom [Brady] released the football," head referee Gene Steratore said after the game, "the line judge lost track of maybe where the ball was at that point and almost by its own definition, inadvertently blew the whistle."

NFL Vice President of officiating Dean Blandino likewise admitted the mistake after the game: "The line judge lost track of the football and he blew his whistle inadvertently. So, that's a mistake and we shouldn't have blown the whistle." Which is a good start. But he proceeded to double down on the screw up: "They're going to look at where was the football when the whistle was blown, and they determined that Amendola had the football when the whistle was blown."

As a Patriots fan, I will tell you, he did not. Whether or not Amendola would've scored is up for debate, but the fact that we're even discussing sports on this hypothetical spirit realm is disconcerting.

But wait, that wasn't the end of the mess. On their final drive, down 20-13, the Bills needed to drive 84 yards with no timeouts to attempt to tie the game. A completion to Robert Woods appeared to be good for a first down, but the replay officials decided to look at the play for some unexplained reason, slowing down the Bills' rhythm, and reversing the result to 2nd and 1. An ensuing sack of Tyrod Taylor saw the officials taking their sweet ass time to spot the ball while the clock continued to run. Good news if you're a Patriots fan, sure, but not if you'd like to see an even playing field.

Needing to convert a third and six to extend the drive and have any hope, Taylor found Sammy Watkins on the sideline, where he fell to the ground, and rolled out of bounds with two seconds left. They wound the clock, and the game ended.

As Steratore explained after the game, the refs ruled that Watkins had transubstantiated into a runner under the convoluted mythos of the NFL, and that he "had given himself up in the field of play", a judgement call made by the linesman that is unreviewable.

"He deemed that the runner gave himself up in the field of play voluntarily, which does put him down by contact in the field, so he wound (the clock)," Steratore said. "The fact that he scoots out of bounds is not as important."

But there doesn't even seem to be agreement on whether or not that's true.

"Lots asking about going out of bounds backward. If you are untouched by the defender and slide out of bounds, the clock stops. Not like NCAA" Mike Pereira, the former Vice President of Officiating , and current FOX Sports ref whisperer tweeted. "The pool report states that the runner gave himself up after catching the pass at the sideline. Really? That makes bad even worse."

Making Bad Even Worse: You might call that the motto of the NFL this year. It will be interesting to see how much lower this thing can go.